“It’s not a bag,” stated Julio Torres, indicating the purse that dangled from his shoulder on a fragile gold chain.
No matter it was, it was formed like a fish, and roomy sufficient to hold a small shell or perhaps a few grapes. Mr. Torres had bought the non-bag at a flea market in Paris and introduced it to a reception in Manhattan on Saturday for his new HBO collection, “Fantasmas.”
Mr. Torres, 37, is a former “Saturday Evening Reside” author whose galactic visible sensibility extends to his Instagram deal with, @spaceprincejulio. He wrote, directs and stars in “Fantasmas,” a string of vignettes set in an eerie dreamscape that seems to be located someplace between Williamsburg and Roku Metropolis.
Perched in a vibrant nook at Jungle Fowl, a Chelsea cocktail bar close to the theater the place the primary two episodes of “Fantasmas” can be screened that night as a part of the L.G.B.T.Q. movie pageant NewFest Satisfaction, Mr. Torres defined how he had recruited Steve Buscemi to play the letter Q in a sketch concerning the alphabet: Simply.
“He learn the script and acquired again to me inside, like, half an hour,” Mr. Torres stated.
Close to a disco ball roughly the dimensions of Jupiter, a row of murals dotted with summary nipples confronted Eighth Avenue. The room was quickly full of Mr. Torres’s mates and collaborators. (The Venn diagram between the 2 was virtually a circle.)
Ziwe Fumudoh, the comic who sparred final 12 months with former Consultant George Santos, rushed previous a setup of vegetarian dumplings. She greeted Tomás Matos, an ebullient actor and dancer whose lengthy fingernails have been painted like watermelon wedges. Julia Fox, finest identified for being Julia Fox, posed for photographs outdoors the theater later within the night standing alongside a blue robotic on wheels.
“OK, robotic!” an onlooker holding a cigarette shouted.
All have roles within the present, even the robotic, whose identify is Bibo and who goals of turning into an actor. Beneath its ample gags, “Fantasmas” is a rumination on the trade-offs required to make artwork, and the inventive compromises that come up for younger artists in search of monetary safety, a bigger viewers and medical insurance.
“I really feel like all the things I do is a few type of a negotiation,” Mr. Torres stated.
The sentiment would have been acquainted to nearly everybody within the room, a bunch of up-and-comers working a continuing cost-benefit evaluation on their ascendance. Martine, an artist identified for her shape-shifting work, described the present as “a documentary about hustlers coming of age in New York Metropolis.”
“There’s the inventive that could be a business pursuit, after which there’s the inventive that’s for you,” stated Ms. Fumudoh, who hosted two seasons of the Showtime selection present “Ziwe.” “When it’s for you, you reside freely and do no matter you need. When it turns into a business pursuit, you need to hearken to the folks that fund the artwork.”
Sam Taggart, a comic and a bunch of the podcast “StraightioLab,” stated he had lengthy joked that each one inventive paths finally result in a job in promoting. “The additional I get in my profession, the extra I really feel that to be true,” he stated. “Like, I actually thought I used to be a wild one.”
In “Fantasmas,” the shoe firm Zappos has a streaming service and the cereal firm Common Mills operates a luxurious condo advanced. The present portrays an leisure trade that recruits queer folks and swiftly pigeonholes them.
“Give us a trauma, give it to us humorous, give it to us en español, por favor,” a streaming govt performed by Natasha Lyonne tells Mr. Torres’s character in a single episode.
Between their ardour fruit cocktails, friends praised Mr. Torres’s aptitude for reaching extensive audiences with out diluting his eccentricity. As a author on “Saturday Evening Reside,” Mr. Torres was chargeable for screwball sketches like “Papyrus,” wherein Ryan Gosling portrays a person pushed to the brink by artless typography. His movie “Problemista,” starring a manic Tilda Swinton, was launched by A24 this spring.
“He has actually taught me how one can transfer my method by way of these channels as a way to get one thing made,” the comic Spike Einbinder stated of Mr. Torres. “He’s helped me reframe it in a much less selling-out method, and extra like a subversion, infiltration kind of factor.”
Tomás Matos, who performs an anarchic ride-share driver named Chester, stated Mr. Torres had introduced few necessities for the character past having a hairdo that resembled a poodle.
“It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, who I’m, and generally I really feel like I’ve to compromise me as an individual to suit into these roles,” the actor stated. “Compromises are simply foolish,” they added. “We will have all of it. Abundance, down. Interval.”
The group maneuvered 4 blocks uptown to the SVA Theater, the place greater than 400 followers had lined up for the free screening. Two hours later, viewers members emerged into the dim blue glow of a Citibank on West twenty third Avenue, laughing.
